New Delhi: Former Justice of India, Justice PN Bhagwati, passed away on the night of June 16 at the age of 95. 
Prafulchandra Natwarlal Bhagwati or as he was popularly known PN Bhagwati was the 17th Chief Justice of India and was India’s chief justice from July 1985 to December 1986. 
Justice PN Bhagwati is known to give voice to the voiceless by introducing public interest litigation (PIL) along with his brother justice VR Krishna Iyer.  This step was seen as a milestone in the Indian Judicial System.

The original idea was to give marginalised citizens access to justice, but by the mid-1990s PILs had transformed the entire legal system with a storm of high-profile cases.
Justice Bhagwati was a judge of the Gujarat High Court for 13 years and served as Chief Justice of the high court from 1967 to 1973. Subsequently, he was elevated to the apex court. After his retirement, Bhagwati held several key offices on legal aid and judicial reforms in Gujarat. He ran the Pilot Project of free Legal Aid and Advice in the state as chairman of the State Legal Aid Committee. 
Apart from showing the path towards PIL, PN Bhagwati is also known for his few judgements.  One of the important ruling was the Maneka Gandhi passport impounding case in 1978 in which he stood extensively with the fundamental right and elaborated the concept of right to life with the statement that a person's movement cannot be restricted. He also ruled that a person holds the full right to hold a passport.
However, his ruling in the Menaka Gandhi case was a departure from his views in the ADM Jabalpur v Shivkant Shukla case, popularly known as the Habeas Corpus case, in which Bhagwati concurred with the Majority view that it is reducing  importance attached to Fundamental Rights under the Indian Constitution.
Bhagwati was also criticized by many for the change of stands at various occasions, favouring the ruling government, which were deemed to be taken for his better career prospects.
Irrespective of all of this PN Bhagwati born on 21 December 1921 in Gujarat holds the place of a pioneer of judicial activism in the country along with Justice V R Krishna Iyer by introducing the concepts of Public Interest Litigation and Absolute Liability in India giving voice to many.
PIL has now become an integral part of the Indian judicial system and time and again acted as an important instrument of protecting the interests of underprivileged and marginalised sections of the society. 
Bhagwati is survived by his wife and three daughters.
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